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Factors that increase the likelihood of content going viral

What makes content go viral? If we had a definitive answer, we’d all be in charge of our respective PR and marketing departments.

As it stands, however, viral content can feel like a bit of a crapshoot—as in, throw a bunch of random ideas against the wall, see what happens, and then say, “Well, shoot … that stuck.”

There has to be a better method—some identifying characteristics that would show us how and why certain pieces of content go viral while others remain completely anonymous and ignored.

Noah Kagan, author of OK Dork, set out to learn exactly what makes content go viral. This scholastic journey led Kagan to Henley Wing, founder of BuzzSumo.com.

Wing recently penned a guest piece for OK Dork that revealed BuzzSumo’s analysis of over 100 million articles. His study suggests that, aside from write compelling content, there are some additional steps that marketers can take to increase the reach of their content.

Although you’ll certainly want to read the full post to understand the details, in the meantime, here are 10 quick offering from the research that are likely to improve the chances of your content actually getting shared: